Job 19

Job Feels Insulted

¹Then Job responded,

²“How long will you torment me[#19:2 Lit my soul]

And crush me with words?

³“These ten times you have insulted me;

You are not ashamed to wrong me.

⁴“Even if I have truly done wrong,

My error stays with me.

⁵“If indeed you exalt yourselves against me

And prove my disgrace to me,

⁶Know then that God has wronged me

And has surrounded me with His net.

Everything Is Against Him

⁷¶“Behold, I cry, ‘Violence!’ but I get no answer;

I shout for help, but there is no justice.

⁸“He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass,

And He has put darkness on my paths.

⁹“He has stripped my honor from me

And removed the crown from my head.

¹⁰“He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone;

And He has uprooted my hope like a tree.

¹¹“He has also kindled His anger against me

And considered me as His enemy.

¹²“His troops come together

And build up their way against me

And camp around my tent.

¹³¶“He has removed my brothers far from me,

And my acquaintances have completely turned away from me.

¹⁴“My relatives have failed,

And my close friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵“Those who live in my house and my servant women consider me a stranger.

I am a foreigner in their sight.

¹⁶“I call to my servant, but he does not answer;

I have to implore his favor with my mouth.

¹⁷“My breath is offensive to my wife,

And I am loathsome to my own brothers.

¹⁸“Even young children despise me;

I stand up and they speak against me.

¹⁹“All my associates loathe me,[#19:19 Lit the men of my council]

And those I love have turned against me.

²⁰“My bone clings to my skin and my flesh,

And I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.

²¹“Pity me, pity me, you friends of mine,

For the hand of God has struck me.

²²“Why do you persecute me as God does,

And are not satisfied with my flesh?

Job Says My Redeemer Lives

²³¶“Oh that my words were written!

Oh that they were recorded in a book!

²⁴“That with an iron stylus and lead

They were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵“Yet as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,

And at the last, He will take His stand on the earth.

²⁶“Even after my skin is destroyed,[#19:26 Lit which they have cut off]

Yet from my flesh I will see God,

²⁷Whom I, on my part, shall behold for myself,

And whom my eyes will see, and not another.

My heart faints within me!

²⁸“If you say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’

And ‘What pretext for a case against him can we find?’

²⁹“Then be afraid of the sword for yourselves,

For wrath brings the punishment of the sword,

So that you may know there is judgment.”